The National Customs Service reported this Friday (24.06.2022/XNUMX/XNUMX) on intelligence work carried out jointly with the Investigative Police (PDI) that allowed the historic seizure of 474.322 ecstasy pills.
According to information, at the beginning of last April, a major drug trafficking operation linked to Chile was detected in the Netherlands, which generated a international coordination for a controlled delivery and exchange of information with the National Customs Service, the National Anti-Narcotics and Organized Crime Headquarters of the Investigative Police (PDI) and the Specialized Unit of the Criminal Analysis System and Investigative Focuses of the Tarapacá Prosecutor's Office.
As a result of these initial indications and intelligence work carried out by the Department of Drugs and Related Crimes of the National Customs Directorate, two shipments of maritime cargo from Europe to the ports of San Antonio and Iquique were identified, the indicators of which pointed to smuggling detected in the Netherlands.
In this way, two procedures were carried out in Chilean ports where the largest seizure in the history of Chile and South America for MDMA or ecstasy was achieved, consisting of 474.322 MDMA or ecstasy tablets, with a gross weight of 325 kilos.
Faced with this event, Paola Apablaza, head of the Criminal Analysis and Investigative Focus System (Sacfi) of the Tarapacá Prosecutor's Office, explained: “I would like to highlight the coordinated work that was achieved. That is very important in terms of organized crime. And Here we can see that the National Customs Service and the Investigative Police have collaborated, as have the analysts and Customs officials in charge of inspecting cargo at the port of Iquique, and the work has also been coordinated with the Prosecutor's Office."
For its part, Deputy Director of Customs Enforcement, Ana Karina Ochoa, stressed that "this seizure is historic not only because it is a joint effort between the Public Prosecutor's Office, Customs and the Police, but because it is the largest of this type of synthetic drugs that has ever entered the country through the northern zone, and also involves intelligence work between the San Antonio Customs, the Iquique Customs and the Sub-Directorate of Inspection."
The official added that "Under the coordination of the investigation of the Prosecutor's Office, we made use of all our resources, with strong intelligence work to detect these shipments that came by sea through the port of San Antonio and in transit to Iquique hidden in a compressor, and then detecting the same type of drugs with the same operators in vehicles that entered through the port of Iquique."
Meanwhile, Head of the Northern Anti-Narcotics and Organized Crime Prefecture, Prefect Rodrigo Fuentes, indicated that there is "important joint work in the sense of making contacts, intelligence work and investigation, which managed to determine the entry through the ports of San Antonio and Iquique of significant quantities of drugs."
San Antonio and Iquique
El First procedure occurred in mid-May, when based on the information collected through the Customs data analysis and intelligence systems, an intervention was carried out in an extra-port company (where foreign trade cargo is stored) of San Antonio, on merchandise that was scheduled to be transferred to the city of Iquique and whose origin was precisely the Netherlands.
That load corresponded to a compressor and, after opening it with tools, the officials of the San Antonio Customs Administration and the PDI checked the intelligence data: 149.560 MDMA pills or tablets, equivalent to 65 kilos, were hidden in the machine. Through a controlled delivery by the PDI and the Prosecutor's Office, the compressor continued on its way to Iquique, adding another angle to the investigation.
Subsequently, and continuing with the information associated with the procedures in Europe and the port of San Antonio, the first days of June Customs identified 3 used vehicles shipped from the Netherlands directly to Port of Iquique to be taken to the Zona Franca: two Mercedes Benz and a Renault.
Once they were removed, the Iquique Regional Customs and PDI inspection teams proceeded to physically inspect the vehicles, using the Customs scanner truck and other tools, discovering that the cars were hiding ecstasy in various parts of their bodies.
This seizure was even larger than the previous one: it consisted of 324.762 MDMA tablets, equivalent to 260 kilos.
In parallel to these procedures, the controlled delivery of the caravan that arrived from Europe was constantly monitored by Customs, the PDI and the Prosecutor's Office to comply with the instructions for international controlled delivery. Through the controlled delivery of the loads of the 3 procedures, which were received by their recipients, 5 people from the organization were arrested.
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